Heading back down south

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Woke up just before 7 and went across the road to pick up the laundry. I was stood there for ages shouting hello before someone popped their head around the door, said hello back and disappeared again. Eventually I found somebody and explained I was here to pick up the laundry. I identified my pile of clothes and what I hoped were sams, but then I noticed my pair of trousers on a different pile- seems it was a bit mixed up. Anyway, she apologized for it not being dry- (there can't have been enough sun yesterday) I paid and walked back over to the hotel. Some of Sams' clothes were missing, and although it smelled a damned sight better than before, a lot of stuff still had loads of mud on it, and to be honest, I probably could have done a better hand wash myself. Oh well. I had a shower and packed my damp clothes, and went to breakfast- not a lot of choice so another fried egg on toast ( I never thought I'd say it but I actually quite fancy a weetabix)
without time to spare, we loaded our bags onto a songthaew and made our way to the bus station ready for the journey back to Chaing Mai.
The bus was ok- air conditioned, and I couldn't smell the toilet on this one! It was a long journey, and I tried to sleep but could never get comfy. A film was on the tv at the front of the bus, one with Josh Hartnett in it, although i think it was heavily dubbed in thai by what I could make out, so instead read some of my book, and daydreamed out of the window. In ways I love the complete lack of health and safety here, with people traveling whilst sitting on the roofs of their trucks, or hanging onto the back of a songthaew.
Eventually we arrived at Chaing Mai and boarded a minibus to get us go the hotel. We were only staying here for 3 hours until it was time to get the train, but it was nice to have a break, and to be able to charge the camera etc.
We spent a couple of hours lounging round the pool and ordered a burger before having a shower and making our way to the train station. It was the same train we'd got on the way up, and the stewardess recognized us.
We sat and read our books for a bit as we set off, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up, and it seemed everyone had dozed off.
We chatted and ate, and at around 8pm, Sam, Laura and I decided to join Boom in the Karaoke carriage. Along the way we picked up Anna the Canadian girl, and just as we'd ordered a couple of bottles of heineken, Beth also joined us. It was quite funny- but probably in a way that you had to be there. We were all crammed onto 1 table sharing bottles of beer, whilst the music made me want to open the window and throw myself under the train- it was so slow and depressing, Mariah Carey ballads, Britney Spears- yawn! 
Eventually 'like a Prayer' came on, and for one night only, we were all Madonna. The people in that carriage were looking at us like we were nuts, all singing and clapping, and the barman handed us the microphone. That was it, we were all taking turns to belt out our number on the Karaoke. We'd decided to pass the microphone around, and no matter what the song was you HAD to sing it when it was your go. The song that I had was ' can't take my eyes off you' and not the Andy Williams version, but the one that is remixed and sounding quite camp. All the better for me to strut up and down the carriage to, and sit on peoples knees whilst I was singing ( badly) it was funny though and the photos were good. Eventually everyone got up for a dance and I'm ashamed to say that in the year 2011, on a rickety train somewhere between change Mai and Bangkok, at aged 28 in the karaoke carriage, I did The Macarena dance.
At 11pm, the party ended, we swapped email addresses with some German guys we got talking to in order to do the whole Facebook photo thing, and made our way back to our bunks. We gatecrashed Laura and Sarahs bunk opposite to look through the pictures we'd taken, then they gatecrashed ours, and we watched The Inbetweeners that I'd downloaded onto my iPad. I fell asleep pretty much straight away- the boogie train had taken it out of me for another day. 

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